The Triumph Of Mediocrity

John Boehner is a perfect example of a fellow who has risen well above any position he might be capable of mastering. In a well ordered world and with a little luck he might be managing a Dairy Queen or selling used cars. To give him any say in serious matters that involve anything beyond his own immediate family is laughable. There simply isn't enough brain power there to get a complicated job done.

He is not alone in this deficiency. What wisdom can we possibly expect from the likes of Boehner, Eric Cantor, Mitch McConnell, Paul Ryan and all of the other ethical and intellectual dwarfs? Do you really want to trust these people with your future and the future of our nation? Really? Well, what about Rick "Life Is A Ponzi Scheme" Perry or Willard Mitt "I Create Jobs By Firing People" Romney? Trust them to save us? Sarah Palin or Michele Bachmann? Now we've crossed over into the realm of Pythonesque satire: The Really Loony Party. Ditch the tricorner hats and get some of those beanies with the propellers on top.

The primary goal of the typical Republican politician seems to be to find the backers with the deepest pockets that they can comfortably fit into. This is not a sign of intelligence, or talent, or ethics, or anything of substance. It is certainly not a sign of patriotism.

It is a sign of nothing more than the crassest greed coupled with opportunism and a kind of animal instinct survival-ism. But sadly it is also a sign of the times.

"...It may be true that there's no accounting for taste. But ultimately there must be an accounting for no taste at all. In my lifetime I have witnessed the almost complete triumph of mediocrity. Look around. It's everywhere. Art, politics, literature, business. The lowest common denominator is king. This doesn't seem to bother anyone else, so why should it bother me so much? There used to be giants, you know. It's hard to believe that now, but it's true. Giants. Today I look around and I'm surrounded by an army of pipsqueaks. Pipsqueaks with attitude and a super human sense of entitlement. Hell of a thing."**

(**excerpted from the play Lost Languages, by permission of the author)

Need some federal funds for hurricane relief? F.U. says Cantor...

Every time I think Eric Cantor couldn't be more cruel or stupid than he already is, he proves me wrong. It's really a bit unbelievable to see the lengths this guy will go to to please Grover Norquist. You see, he's now decided that no money should be spent on hurricane relief without corresponding cuts on other federal programs (you're right, he only wants to cut those programs that help the poor -- God forbid we should cut defense!).

Cantor's spokesperson told Talking Points Memo today:
"We aren't going to speculate on damage before it happens, period," his spokesperson Laena Fallon emails. "But, as you know, Eric has consistently said that additional funds for federal disaster relief ought to be offset with spending cuts."

Now note that Fallon says "ought", not "must" -- but I think that's a distinction that really doesn't matter. We've already seen what Cantor and his ilk want to do to the federal budget -- in their ideological world, the only purpose for government is to transfer money from the bottom up to the wealthy. They have shown this to be true over and over and over again. Yet people still vote for them -- go figure.

I'm sure there have been more despicable people to reach positions as powerful as the one Cantor now occupies, that of House Majority Leader, but with the notable exceptions of Dick Cheney and Tom DeLay I have to think really hard to remember one. Usually the system realizes just how inhumane these people are and spits them out after they have their few moments of fame -- but Cantor is still with us and I doubt seriously that his district will vote him out, especially since they are inland and won't bear the brunt of the coming storm. I suspect the rest of the state (especially the coastal areas) will disagree with Cantor, after all,  Governor McDonnell has already declared a state of emergency -- precisely so the state will be eligible for federal disaster funds.

Gutless

Being essentially an understanding, compassionate, bleeding heart liberal, (I consider these to be virtues, by the way), I'd like to think that President Obama had no choice but to go along with the latest Republican attack on the well being of the American people.

The Israelis may have the luxury of saying that they don't negotiate with terrorists, but when the terrorists are duly elected members of the United States' Congress it is a slightly different matter. And when the credit and honor of the nation is at stake in addition to the economic well being of much of the world, well...

It is true that nothing good can get through the House of Representatives at this point. The Tea Party Jacobins have scared whatever little sense there was out of the other Republicans. So maybe this is the best deal he could get. I don't know.

I do know that Mr. Obama is a cautious man who likes to calculate and re-calculate and run through every possible hypothetical. And it may indeed be the case that invoking the 14th Amendment, and telling Boehner and Cantor and McConnell and the rest of the scum to go to hell, might have ended up with the Supreme Court--which at this point is about as corrupt an institution as I can imagine--having to decide the matter. So what?

Let Scalia, Thomas, Roberts, Kennedy, and Alito--the Supreme Corporatists--explain to their "owners" why they let the US default. I for one don't think they have the balls to do it. I mean, what would their country club buddies say?

But now we'll never know.

One thing is for certain: if you believe in the hereafter, then at some point Barack Obama will have to answer to Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, Harry Truman, JFK, MLK, RFK, LBJ, Gene McCarthy, and Teddy Kennedy for what he's helped the Republicans do to the citizens of this country.

A Confederacy of Dunces

I'm not sure what to make of the Republican Party these days. In the latest Presidential poll, Michele Bachman is in a statistical dead heat with Mitt Romney. Now Romney has been known for at least four years as the man who will change his position on any issue to best reflect the views of whichever constituency he is trying to appeal to at that time. His flip-flops make John Kerry ("I was for the war before I was against it") look like a statue of rectitude. Remember, Romney was the man who brought healthcare reform to Massachusetts, before he decided that almost the same plan is terrible for the country. He was pro-choice before he was pro-life. And the list goes on. Meanwhile, Bachmann is the gift that keeps on giving to comedians nationwide.Ssomeone needs to install a switch somewhere in her brain that prevents her every thought from reaching her tongue. As Keith Olbermann put it, "that woman is an idiot." What does it say about the Republicans that these two candidates are currently leading in both the Iowa and national polls?

In the meantime, we have the tea party folks who keep chanting something to the effect of we must take America back. My question is, "from who?" I should think they would want to take it back from the corporate oligarchy that is strangling the middle class and our republic even as we speak. That doesn't seem to be the case though. We have Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court, a justice so morally deficient that he doesn't even try to hide his conflicts of interest on cases he is charged with deciding -- and I can tell you everytime which side of the case he will choose, without my having to bother reading the briefs. Justices Alito, Scalia and Roberts are not much better, and Justice Kennedy continues to disappoint with almost every decision since he represents the deciding voice on almost every case. I'm not speaking here of the "social" cases -- although abortion is surely going to fall this way as well. I'm speaking more of the financial cases -- with this court, whatever corporate America wants, corporate America gets.

Next let's look at those twin stalwarts of the Republican Party in the Congress, Paul Ryan and Eric Cantor. Turns out that on close inspection each stands to benefit from screwing the rest of us. If Ryan's budget somehow were to pass, then Congressman Ryan will make a small fortune by privatizing Medicare. If the U.S. defaults on its debt by not raising the debt ceiling, then Cantor will make wheelbarrows full of money. See, he's been betting AGAINST treasury bonds. It's no wonder he decided to walk out on the debt ceiling talks last week. The chutzpah these guys show knows no bounds.

I could go on this way for some time -- but to be quite frank, thinking about the modern Republican Party and the disastrous effect it is having on the country I so proudly served is giving me a massive headache.